She whirled about the whole of the circle where the Bronze had so recently stood, leaping and cavorting, first in the form of a child, then that of a maid, a woman, a crone, all dancing to a wild music ringing in her head.
Then suddenly she found herself before the crumpled form of Foxbrush held in the arms of a mortal woman.
Nidawi stopped and looked at him, her champion. Did champions weep as this one wept? It was so strange!
She knelt beside him, ignoring Daylily and making quite certain that her own immortal beauty far eclipsed anything the mortal could offer. But when she reached to take Foxbrush in her arms, Daylily growled in her throat. Nidawi, startled, pulled her hands back and gave Daylily a quick once-over. Then the Faerie nodded with grudging respect and said:
“He is my hero.”
“As he is mine,” said Daylily, her arms tightening protectively. “The hero of all Southlands.”
“And Tadew-That-Was. And Etalpalli and Uleonore and Waclawa-so-Lid . . . all those who are avenged this Thirteenth Dawn.” Nidawi’s body trembled with the passion of her words, and her gorgeous eyes brimmed, then overflowed with tears. “They are free! They are free!”
“We are free,” Daylily whispered, gazing down at the one who lay inert in her arms. She could not say if he was conscious. He lay with his head in her lap, eyes open, tears streaming. He breathed very lightly and gazed up at the dawn-streaked sky. She thought he had a look about him as though he heard beautiful music that she herself could not quite catch.
His hands were burned into a mere abstract remnant of what they had once been. Hideous to look upon and unimaginably painful. One could no longer even see where the teeth of the shadow spirit in the Mound had torn and broken them; those wounds were nothing compared to the ruin inflicted by the melting Bronze.
But he lay as though the pain were far from him, as far away as that Song to which he listened.
Nidawi followed Daylily’s gaze and saw Foxbrush’s hands for herself. She sniffed, recoiling a little at the stench of burned flesh. Then she looked at Daylily again and tilted her head of black, leaf-strewn hair to one side. “Do I know you?”
“No,” said Daylily.
“You look familiar,” the Faerie protested. “All you mortals look so alike, but there’s something about you . . . Have I threatened your life at one time?”
“It was not my life you threatened,” Daylily replied.
Nidawi looked at the lion-claw wound in Daylily’s shoulder, still bright red with blood. She looked, and her eyes narrowed, and she almost spoke. At the last, however, she shook herself and turned once more to Foxbrush. His eyes were closed now, and perhaps he slept. “Did you see?” Nidawi asked. “Did you see how he did it? How he killed Cren Cru?”
“He did not kill Cren Cru,” Daylily replied. “I did.”
“What? You? ” This was enough to startle Nidawi right out of her beautiful form into that of an astounded child. Her mouth and her eyes opened wide, and she laughed wildly at the idea. “You killed Cren Cru? But you are not the King of Here and There!”
“Am I not?” said Daylily. Then she shook her head, gazing down into the still face of Foxbrush in her lap. “No, I am no king and no hero.”
But across the vast distances of time, of memory—of echoing dreams and hidden wishes—across the many voices singing songs in the faraway heavens from places neither mortal nor immortal have seen—came a voice. The voice of a girl child, fierce and brave and strong. And it said, so distantly it might perhaps have never spoken at all:
“I am King Shadow Hand of Here and There! And I will slay you, fiend of darkness!”
The voice passed over both Nidawi and Daylily, and they shivered and did not look at each other for a long, trembling moment.
Then Daylily said, “I could have done nothing had he not come for me. Had I not seen him there, in the darkness.”
She said it to herself, but Nidawi heard and nodded solemnly, her youthful face very old. Then she stood up and shook out her bounty of hair, raining leaves and flowers upon both Daylily and Foxbrush.
“I suppose I won’t marry him after all,” she said, crossing her skinny arms across her equally skinny chest. “I was going to, you know, after he killed my enemy. But if he didn’t . . .” She snorted and shrugged. “No matter! I’ll still see to it that the gates are built and this land of yours is protected.”
With that, she turned and cupped her hands around her mouth, prepared to give a great shout. Instead, however, her voice came out in a tiny gasp. She could not breathe for a spell, and her face turned blue. Then she let out all her air in a great, gusting shout.
“Children!”
Daylily looked up, hoping—desperately hoping—to see the children of the South Land, well and whole. Instead, she saw so many tiny, falling stars, flickering lights descending from the sky. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, of every color known to mortals and more colors besides that Daylily could not see and, therefore, perceived only as brilliant white. They fell from the heavens, streaking toward Nidawi, who put out her hands to them. And the Faerie queen herself grew up into the tall, stately, enormously comforting form of the most beautiful mother in the world. Tears streamed down her face as she reached for the lights, which whirled around her in such a glitter and swirl that she was all but obscured from Daylily’s vision.
And Nidawi called out names through her tears: “Wema! Taigu! Minjae! Erila!”
Many more names fell from her lips, as though each one of the thousands of lights was known to her and beloved by her. And though they made no sound, their flickering beauty seemed to speak back to her, saying over and over, Mother! Mother! Mother!
Daylily watched this reunion silently, her breath coming slow and steady.
“Touching scene, yes? Nothing quite like a mother reunited with her little ones. Even if those little ones are scarcely better than ghosts.”
Daylily looked at the cat by her elbow and was not surprised to hear a man’s voice fall from his lips.
“I always like this bit at the end of an adventure,” said Eanrin, giving one of his blistered paws another lick. “There’ll be broken shards aplenty to pick up soon enough. But for the moment, all is hugs and kisses and happy reunions.” He looked down at Foxbrush, and his whiskers drooped. All brightness fled his voice when he asked, “Is he . . . alive?”
Daylily nodded. She realized there were tears on her cheeks. “Only just, I think,” she said. “Only just.”
“Well, we’ll see about that!” Suddenly the cat was gone, and in his place sat a man clad in red. Eanrin took Foxbrush’s ruined hands from Daylily, tugging a little when she proved reluctant to relinquish them. “I can help. I can’t fix it, but I can help,” he said.
Daylily looked at him, then nodded and released her hold. Eanrin, wincing at the pain in his own hands, pulled Foxbrush from her lap and laid him out flat upon the ground. Starflowers, clustering fast, put out eager vines to touch Foxbrush’s face, but Eanrin impatiently shooed them away. He took Foxbrush’s hands in his and, closing his eyes, sang in a rich, mellifluous voice.
“Beyond the Final Water falling,
The Songs of Spheres recalling,
A promise given of a hero and a crown,
Won’t you return to me?”
Daylily watched, her arms wrapped around her middle as though to somehow hold her spirit at bay. For she could feel the wolf straining, struggling . . . weeping.
What was this frightening feeling she had so long suppressed? In the time since she’d allowed herself to care for Lionheart and watched her heart break into a thousand pieces, she’d nearly forgotten this sensation.
But it wasn’t the same. Not really. What she had felt for Lionheart had been fiery, desperate, dangerous, and even—she knew this to the very depths of her soul—destructive. It had left her ravening inside, ready to tear apart even her loved ones for the pain of it.
This was different. This was quieter, gentler—easy to mistake for somethi
ng else, even. And yet, as she looked at those mangled hands—so twisted and raw, the blackened flesh creeping away from bare bones—she knew in her heart. She didn’t know what to call it exactly, or perhaps she was simply afraid to name it.
One thing alone she knew for utter truth. This feeling was similar to her feelings for Lionheart in one aspect only: hopelessness.
Eanrin, his eyes still closed, his brow puckered with concentration, continued to sing. A faint wish that the power of that song might possibly mend all that was broken passed fleetingly through Daylily’s mind. But it was not to be. Wounds closed up, skin knitted at tremendous speed as only magic can cause. But it knitted over two hands distorted beyond all use.
At last, Eanrin sat back with a sigh. He wiped his brow and looked up at Daylily, and there was no trace of merriment in his face. “You gave your own two hands and saved your ancient lands,” he said.
Daylily blinked. “Pardon?”
“Nothing.” Eanrin shook his head. “I’ve done all I can. He’s fallen into a deep trance, and I cannot wake him.”
“Will he live?”
Eanrin managed a smile. It wasn’t an especially cheerful smile, but it was sincere, and it made his face more beautiful than all immortality could offer. “Aye, he’ll live, girl. Are you his Fiery Fair, then?”
Daylily did not breathe. If she breathed, she’d disgrace herself with weeping. A few tears escaping was one thing, but if she gave way to sobs, she did not know if she could recover herself. She reached out and took one of Foxbrush’s crippled hands in her own, her thumb tracing up and down over the magically renewed flesh, feeling all the twists and unnatural breaks that would never truly heal.
At last, believing she had mastered herself, she said, “Actually, he was mine.”
Then she laughed, a gulping, hiccupping sort of laugh, and there was no stopping the weeping then.
Eanrin, a little embarrassed at such a display, got to his feet and turned his back on the two of them, allowing Daylily some dignity. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and looked out upon the world in this deepening dawn.
Nidawi was dancing once more, dancing with a trail of sparkling lights following her wherever she went, and Eanrin’s immortal ears could just discern faint traces of laughter. The children of Nidawi had been lost in the Mound too long to retain their bodily form. But their spirits, their essences, the individuality of each and every one remained alive and thriving and full of bright light. Eanrin smiled a little despite the heaviness in his heart and the smarting of his blistered fingers and palms. Ultimately, what did physical bodies matter? It was the truth of the thing that counted.
There flashed through his mind the image of Sun Eagle disintegrating, turning to smoke. He cursed and clenched his fists, bowing his head.
When he looked up, he saw the Prince of Farthestshore approaching.
“My Lord!” he exclaimed, and his exclamation brought Nidawi to a pause in the midst of her dance. She turned about, saw the Prince, and cried, “Lumil Eliasul!” Then she ran to him, trailing the flickering lights of her people behind her and shedding her motherly form, becoming the child yet again as she fell at his feet. The Prince picked her up, and she wriggled in his arms like a puppy. “It came true! Your promise! My children are rescued!” she exclaimed and kept lunging at his face, trying to kiss him.
He laughed and restrained her gently, his wild, fey child. “Of course it came true. When will you learn to trust me as you should, Nidawi Everblooming?” His words were a chastisement, but his voice was kind, and she squirmed with pleasure at his attention.
Another child, a mortal with a crop of red hair, watched Nidawi from behind the Prince’s back, her expression both a little jealous and a little frightened. She turned large black eyes up to Eanrin and offered him a shy smile.
Then she saw Foxbrush lying behind him, and a small “Oh!” escaped her lips. She let go her hold on the Prince’s coattails and ran through the spreading starflowers, past Eanrin, and fell on her knees beside him, across from Daylily. “What’s happened to him?” she demanded. In this magical place, her rough and ancient tongue shifted so that Daylily could understand it.
And Daylily, her face quite red, her eyes swollen, shook her head, allowing her thick hair to cover her for a moment. Then she said from behind this veil, “He saved me. He saved us all.”
“Will he wake up?” Lark asked, her gaze fixing on Foxbrush’s destroyed hands, unable to look away.
“I hope so,” Daylily replied softly.
“You hope so?” Lark sat up straight, pushing the tangles of hair out of her face. “Why don’t you stop hoping and do something? Don’t you know anything?”
“Know what, child?” Daylily asked, confused and a little intimidated in the face of such passion. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll show you!”
With that, Lark put out her small hands and grabbed Foxbrush by the ears, lifting his head off the ground. She planted a kiss right on his mouth—a childish, sweet, innocent kiss, but no less full of love for that.
Foxbrush blinked, once, twice, unseeing. The third blink, and his vision cleared. He looked up into Lark’s small face so close to his own. She smiled and let go of his ears so that he hit his head hard on the ground. “Ouch!” he said even as Lark turned to Daylily.
“Kisses work every time,” said the girl triumphantly. “And I am the Eldest’s daughter.”
16
ELDEST SIGHT-OF-DAY and her husband stood with their younger children around them at the top of the hill. From this vantage, they saw their daughter approaching from a great way off, and it took Redman’s restraining hand on Sight-of-Day’s arm to keep the Eldest from running to her. “No, no,” he said gently. “Let her return to us.”
So Lark raced up the hill, and Foxbrush followed more slowly behind. The child flung herself into her parents’ arms, and her sisters and brother pulled at her clothes and hair, asking many questions, while Redman and the Eldest were silent in their joy.
Foxbrush hung back, hiding his hands behind his back, trying not to stare at that scene of happy reunion. But at length, Lark turned and pointed to him, saying, “Ma! Da! Foxbrush came to save me! He entered the darkness, and he found me!”
“Don’t speak of that darkness, child,” Sight-of-Day said quickly. Then she turned to Foxbrush, and her face, lined with many cares, was as lovely then as it must have been when she was a young and fresh maiden. “We owe you a great debt,” she said.
Foxbrush shook his head. “No, I did nothing. Lark is more the hero than I.”
“That isn’t so,” Lark protested, leaving the shelter of her mother’s embrace and hurrying to Foxbrush’s side. She reached out and took one of his hands, and the Eldest and Redman saw for the first time the ugly crippling. “He rescued me,” Lark said, holding that hand in both of hers, her eyes shining up at his face. “He entered the darkness, and he saved me.”
Redman looked down at Foxbrush’s feet. And he saw the Path as he had always seen it. And he saw, if only briefly, where it had led.
He met Foxbrush’s gaze and saw there suffering, but also hope and a budding, growing courage. Foxbrush, looking into that twisted, disfigured face, raised one of his twisted, disfigured hands in salute. He even smiled, though there was pain in the smile as he said, “It’s all about blood and love, Redman.”
“In the end,” Redman agreed. “In the end. And it is good.”
“It is good.”
Lark looked from her father to her friend. Suddenly her glad smile fell and tears sprang to her eyes. “You are leaving?” she asked.
Foxbrush, startled, looked down at her. He realized, though he had not known it himself, that she was right. “I . . . I am,” he said quietly. “I must.”
“But—” Lark broke off, bowing her head and fighting back the tears. “I thought you’d stay with us awhile. I thought I’d grow up, and then we would marry, and I’d teach you how to use the blow darts, and . . .” She st
opped and quickly rubbed her eyes. “No. You must go. I understand.”
Then Foxbrush knelt and held her tight, long enough to seal the memory of that embrace in both their hearts. He stood at last, bowed to the Eldest, clasped hands with her husband, and gave each of the little redheaded children a solemn kiss upon the brow.
“Follow your Path with courage, Prince Foxbrush,” said Redman.
Foxbrush turned and started down the hill, his feet for the last time treading that dirt roadway as the eastern sunlight cast his shadow long.
“Don’t forget the wasps!” Lark called behind him.
“I won’t,” he assured her.
Another few paces, then:
“Clusters of six figs at least, and you need to replenish them!”
“I’ll remember,” said Foxbrush over his shoulder.
“Peel them at the stem, or you’ll get juice on your fingers!”
Foxbrush stopped and looked one last time at the family above, the Eldest and her husband standing with their arms around the daughter who was crying silently.
“Don’t worry, Lark,” Foxbrush said, feeling tears of his own on his cheeks. “I’ll never forget you.”
Daylily could not decide whether she stood in the Wood Between or the Near World. The sheltering trees overhung her head, and they were so thick that even the morning sunlight could not pierce through. She looked out from them to the village and the hill, and she watched Foxbrush as he made his good-byes.
Behind her, she felt the presence of the Prince of Farthestshore. But she dared not turn to face him.
“I never forget a promise!” Nidawi was saying, perhaps a little defensively. She stood with her arms crossed, the lights of her children hovering around her head. “But . . . but I don’t see why I have to do anything just now. A century or two won’t hurt anything.”
“You forget the effects of time on mortals, Nidawi,” said the Prince, his voice stern. “You must honor your promise to the King of Here and There.”
“Yes, but,” Nidawi whined, her pretty eyes lavender with pleading, “I’m not even certain who the King of Here and There is! He”—with a thumb jerk toward Foxbrush, approaching from a distance—“is the one who’ll wear the crown and all, but that one”—with another jerk at Daylily, standing quietly to one side—“claims to have actually killed my enemy. It’s all most perplexing!”